employees' feelings of job satisfaction. In essence, bullying may signal to employees that they are not appreciated, respected, or valued. And in turn, workers do ...
2010
Research Briefs
employees’ feelings of job satisfaction. In essence, bullying may signal to employees that they are not appreciated, respected, or valued. And in turn, workers do not want to be committed to a team or to a manager who bullies them. To make matters worse, individuals who are bullied tend to be perceived by their fellow workers as either outsiders or lower status individuals—reactions that further isolate bullying victims. Consequently, bullied employees feel that they lack meaningful relationships in the workplace and their morale suffers. In fact, Loh and her colleagues found that, regardless of culture, employees who experienced the wrath of a workplace bully felt alienated from their co-workers. While both Australian and Singaporean employees were similar in terms of experiencing a negative reaction to workplace bullying, Loh and her colleagues also found compelling differences across the two cultures. Essentially, Australian employees rated their job satisfaction much lower than their Singaporean counterparts when bullying was involved. Moreover, Australian employees reported more intense feelings of alienation from their co-workers following bullying incidents than did Singaporean employees. In a nutshell, this study suggests that while bullying may be a universally unpleasant experience for employees, the degree of distress it causes seems to be influenced by national culture. Loh and her colleagues explain that the differences in the intensity of the consequences probably relates to the differences in each culture’s level of power distance. Essentially, those in higher power distance cultures have a higher tolerance for this type of behavior because they may see some expressions of power especially from supervisors as standard behavior (e.g., delivering corrective feedback in public in a stern manner). In contrast, employees in low power distance cultures may tend to perceive these same behaviors as extraordinarily harsh. Loh and her colleagues suggested that another reason for the difference in the impact of bullies across cultures stems from the fact that job satisfaction and work-group identification are outcomes that tend to be more strongly embraced by employees with a Western or individualistic orientation. Conversely, Singaporeans and employ-
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ees in other Eastern cultures are more likely to have a collectivistic attitude toward work and are more focused on organizational and team outcomes rather than on their individual experiences and personal treatment by supervisors. Indeed, this study serves as a reminder to leaders in global organizations of the importance of viewing their workforce through a cross-cultural lens to create an environment where all employees around the world feel satisfied and committed to the firm. That said, Loh and her colleagues believe more research on bullying is needed, both across cultures and in multicultural work settings. After all, managers and employees alike are increasingly spending time collaborating in diverse, global work environments—where key differences in values, perceptions, and belief systems nonetheless exist. Source: Loh, J., Restubog, S. L. D., & Zagenczyk, T. J. (2010). Consequences of workplace bullying on employee identification and satisfaction among Australians and Singaporeans. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 41(2), 236 –252.
Counterproductive Work Behavior: Can It Sometimes Be Good to Be Bad? Research Brief by Stuart D. Sidle, Associate Professor, Department of Psychology, University of New Haven
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ave you ever noticed co-workers or direct reports routinely taking long breaks that run way beyond what is permissible? Have you seen members of your organization deliberately violating policies and procedures? If you answered “yes” to either of these questions, there’s good reason to look deeper at why this is happening. Because— believe it or not—such counterproductive work behaviors may actually serve to benefit workers and their organizations in some surprising ways. The costly consequences of employees’ counterproductive work behaviors (willful actions that have the potential to harm an organization
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and/or its employees, such as sabotage or intentionally arriving late) have been well documented. Moreover, scholars have developed several theories that can help managers better understand and ultimately control the conditions that often spark counterproductive work behaviors. For example, worker perceptions of injustice are linked to a higher incidence of counterproductive work behaviors, which, in turn, can lead to a variety of costly production and performance problems. Not surprisingly, however, researchers have generally ignored the question of whether there are any potential benefits of counterproductive behaviors. New research by Mindy Krischer (University of Houston), Lisa Penney (University of Houston), and Emily Hunter (Baylor University) sheds light on how some forms of counterproductive work behavior may serve to benefit employees and organizations. Krischer and her colleagues focused on two types of counterproductive work behavior—withdrawal (e.g., taking excessive breaks, arriving late, or leaving early) and production deviance (e.g., intentionally doing tasks incorrectly or working slowly). Specifically, they investigated whether engaging in these two types of counterproductive behavior helps employees cope with the emotional exhaustion (feelings of being overextended and generally worn down) that often results from experiencing unjust situations at work. Indeed, one well-established source of workplace stress is the lack of organizational justice. Working in an environment that lacks organizational justice can be so stressful that it leads to emotional exhaustion. Two forms of organizational justice are distributive and procedural justice. Distributive justice refers to the perceived fairness of reward allocations such as pay raises, bonuses, promotions, and office assignments. Procedural justice refers to the perceived fairness of the processes by which decisions are made, such as how leaders go about choosing who lands the plum job, who completes the performance evaluation, or who gets the corner office. To investigate the notion that counterproductive work behaviors serve as coping mechanisms, Krischer and her colleagues analyzed survey results
August
from 295 employees across a variety of jobs and locations in the United States. The survey assessed participants’ perception of justice in the workplace, how frequently they engaged in counterproductive work behaviors, and their level of emotional exhaustion. The results are compelling. First, Krischer and her colleagues replicated the finding from previous studies that employees who experience an unjust work environment tend to experience more emotional exhaustion. More important, their research also suggested that employees who engage in counterproductive withdrawal behaviors (e.g., taking long breaks) or production deviance (e.g., purposely doing things wrong) do so to effectively cope with the emotional strain of working in an unjust environment. Essentially, Krischer and her colleagues found that, when faced with organizational injustice, employees who engaged in withdrawal behaviors were less likely to experience emotional exhaustion than those who did not. Krischer and her colleagues make the case that in an unjust work environment withdrawal behaviors help employees escape an unpleasant situation and allow them to replenish their depleted emotional resources. Consequently, these employees end up suffering less emotional exhaustion than those who don’t engage in withdrawal behaviors when faced with decisions, procedures, or reward allocations they feel are unjust. Likewise, engaging in production deviance also seems to help employees cope with their unjust work environments. In fact, employees who engaged in production deviance had less emotional exhaustion when faced with distributive injustice (e.g., unfair allocation of bonuses) than those who did not. Krischer and her colleagues explain that engaging in production deviance following an unfair distribution of rewards allows the worker to regain control and “even the score.” On the other hand, production deviance is not that helpful to workers looking for ways to cope with procedural injustice. This may be due to the fact that a sense of procedural justice often occurs from multiple events over time and that it is not as simple to even the score through production deviance. Moreover, engaging in production de-
2010
Research Briefs
viance (e.g., performing slowly on purpose) requires conscious effort on an employee’s part. Consequently, the energy it takes to maintain this type of behavior over time could actually lead to increases in emotional exhaustion. Overall, this study can help managers understand why some workers engage in counterproductive work behaviors. And by understanding the motivations that drive these behaviors, savvy managers can figure out more acceptable alternatives for employees to rely on when coping with the stress of perceived injustice at work. For example, Krischer and her colleagues suggest creating grievance procedures to provide employees with a sense of control, instituting exercise programs to help employees work off stress, and offering additional break times to help employees reenergize. Krischer and her colleagues argue that the implications of these findings raise an interesting paradox. Although counterproductive work behaviors such as withdrawal and production deviance are usually considered harmful to organizations, they also help employees cope. And if one upside of these behaviors is that they reduce workers’ feelings of distributive injustice, then there may be organizational benefits as well. Indeed, research shows that improvement in perceptions of distributive justice offers associated benefits to organizations such as higher levels of citizenship behavior, job satisfaction, and organization commitment. Consequently, trying to eliminate counterproductive behaviors from the workplace without providing opportunities to help employees cope with their feelings of injustice may cause additional headaches for organizations. Instead, managers would be wise to view any increase in counterproductive work behaviors as a potential red flag—a warning that employees may be trying to cope with perceived injustice by shielding themselves from becoming emotionally exhausted on the job. Source: Krischer, M. M., Penney, L. M., & Hunter, E. M. (2010). Can counterproductive work behaviors be productive? CWB as emotion-focused coping. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 15(2), 154 –166.
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Sarbanes-Oxley: Does the Cost Knock Your Socks Off? Research Brief by John A. Martin, Associate Professor of Management, United States Air Force Academy, and James G. Combs, Jim Moran Professor of Management, Jim Moran Institute for Global Entrepreneurship, Florida State University
T
he big one was Enron. Caught hiding more than a billion dollars of debt, bribing foreign governments, and manipulating energy markets, Enron wiped out $11 billion in shareholder equity in less than a year and brought down its accounting firm, Arthur Andersen, in the process. Then there were reports of inflated earnings at Kmart, Qwest, Global Crossing, Halliburton, Bristol-Myers Squibb, WorldCom, and Tyco. No wonder congressional discussions of corporate governance reform were well under way in early 2002 when the Rigas family got caught taking $3 billion in personal loans from Adelphia Communications. The result of all of these shenanigans was the introduction of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) in 2002. Perhaps the most far-reaching corporate governance regulation since the Securities and Exchange Acts, SOX’s stated purpose is “to protect investors by improving the accuracy and reliability of corporate disclosures.” SOX attempts this noble goal by requiring the board’s audit committee to do additional internal monitoring, forcing disclosure about internal accounting control practices, mandating that boards have a majority of outside directors, and making CEOs and CFOs personally certify accounting disclosures. Proponents felt these steps would simultaneously increase investor confidence in the stock market while reducing accounting misconduct. Yet in 2010, critical questions about SOX remain largely unanswered. Most important, what are the benefits and costs of SOX, and are they worth it? Estimating benefits is tricky because most are spread across the entire market. For instance, increased disclosure should boost investor
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